Hello from the Other Side

Some ghosts roam space and time. Some just want a friend. Others hope you'll cross over to the other side.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Glynn Washington?

  Chim chimaday, chim chimaday, chim chim churroo. I'll pick the cards to show your destiny. Chim chimaday, chim chimaday, chim chim churroo. There's no turning back, 'cause there's naught you can do. So run till your mom see.

• 0:39Glynn Washington?

  And we'll catch her too.

• 0:46Glynn Washington?

  You've forced all this spook in it. Stay tuned.

• 0:56Glynn Washington?

  Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones, like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. And sometimes you make great ones, like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options so you can be sure you have the right coverage for you, along with 24/7 claim support and great customer service. So when you think about it, that's like four great decisions that more than makes up for the TV debacle. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 1:39Glynn Washington?

  Spooksters, you have spoken. We want more spook, you said. We want the support to show, you said. And can we please, for the love of all that is holy, please get rid of those ads? Well, prayers answered. Spooked Plus has risen. Ad-free spook, the entire library, no interruptions. Just you and whatever's lurking in the shadows. Exclusive bonus stories every month. Fresh nightmares you won't hear anywhere else. The Spooked Plus community, listen together, chat in real time because no one should face the darkest alone. And, and, ask me anything for yours truly.

• 2:23Glynn Washington?

  If you've got questions, I've got answers. Maybe. And we're just getting started. Spook says, "We are a small team chasing down the big mystery. Your support keeps this flame burning, so come on in. The door is open. Spooked.supercast.com. That's spooked.supercast.com. Spooked Plus. Don't turn out the lights.

• 3:02Glynn Washington?

  Late Friday, I get off the bar train. In the bad old days, downtown Oakland, near City Hall, is deserted. Nothing but boarded up windows, locked doors. And with four women, three guys, friends walking huddled close for safety, head on a swivel. Don't want no funny business. And then, like from a fairy story, we hear the peals of a bagpipe. Why? Who knows? Maybe there's some underground Scottish thing going on. Let's maybe check it out. This music.

• 3:45Glynn Washington?

  Pied pipers us along, and there, between two dark buildings, warm light spills onto the sidewalk, an open door, and there are people. Old people, young people, mothers holding babies, men hugging old friends, laughing, shouting, singing. Grandmothers dancing to the bagpiper. Throwing back tiny glasses of something that looks alcoholic. In the window, a small handwritten sign reads, "Bulgaria at Night."

• 4:21Glynn Washington?

  We peek in like wild-eyed refugees and fore greeted with smiles with slaps on the back. "Hey, man, what's going on with the bagpipes? Is this some kind of Scottish?" "There are bagpipes." "Our Bulgarians, don't you know? Scots stole the bagpipe from Bulgaria. It's our national instrument." Then he's pressing the cups of something called vodka into our hands. One sip and I almost go blind. Some kind of crazy Balkan moonshine. They laugh as I stagger. Pour another. There's food. Thick, blood-red sausages.

• 5:05Glynn Washington?

  A woman shoves spiced beef into my mouth. Cabbage rolls and cubes of cheese that don't come from a cow.

• 5:15Glynn Washington?

  In the corner, a couple sing operatic accompaniment to the bagpiper. A guy hands me a baby to hold while he dances. More moonshine. "Hey, tell a story." Alcohol gives me courage. My tail makes them laugh and pour more moonshine. At a table, an old man slams my buddy's wrist down in arm wrestling. Everybody else is dancing, dancing, dancing, eating, dancing, dancing, laughing, drinking, dancing, spinning. We finally stagger away from Eastern Europe. Back onto the streets of Oakland. Four in the morning. Smiles on our faces, songs in our heart, fifty brand-new best friends.

• 6:00Glynn Washington?

  And I know exactly where I'm spending every weekend for the rest of my life with my people, the Bulgarians.

• 6:10Glynn Washington?

  When I return the next night.

• 6:15Glynn Washington?

  There's no warm light, no sign, no bagpipes, nothing.

• 6:24Glynn Washington?

  And I know it was right here.

• 6:29Glynn Washington?

  I know it. My friends over days, we give search empty. I even look online, Bulgaria at night.

• 6:41Glynn Washington?

  Scarcely brief mentions, a few broken links, what?

• 6:46Glynn Washington?

  And this was years ago.

• 6:49Glynn Washington?

  Every once in a while, I see one of us who walked into the light that night. One of us who was there, we'd look at each other in the eyes.

• 6:58Glynn Washington?

  That happened, right?

• 7:01Glynn Washington?

  We were there, right? Right?

• 7:07Glynn Washington?

  Here's the thing.

• 7:10Glynn Washington?

  Every once in a while, I still go by that spot.

• 7:15Glynn Washington?

  I'm still looking for that sign.

• 7:19Glynn Washington?

  Believe me. This time?

• 7:25Glynn Washington?

  If I hear bagpipes.

• 7:31Glynn Washington?

  I don't know if I'm coming back.

• 7:41Glynn Washington?

  Spook Star.

• 7:46Glynn Washington?

  Now.

• 8:36Glynn Washington?

  Magic doors, magic doors. Sometimes it feels like the universe is having them laugh.

• 8:43Glynn Washington?

  Ingrid Johnson, she just escaped a bad marriage. She's broke, she needs every bit of rest so she can get on to take care of herself and her baby boy.

• 8:55Glynn Washington?

  So Ingrid's really, really relieved to get into a brand-new apartment.

• 9:01Glynn Washington?

  Spooked.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  The apartment was very small. I found it on Craigslist. It was obviously, at one time, a building that was one unit. And the owner had split it up. No washing machine, no dishwasher, no parking. Basically, a studio that happened to have a door on the bedroom. It didn't feel like a permanent place. It felt like a place just to crash and then start over from.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  I lost a lot of friends in the divorce. I wasn't leaving the house, and I wasn't dating. In the beginning, I had three jobs. I worked from 3:30 in the morning until 8:00 in the morning, opening a juice bar. Then I would change into my business attire. And I would go to a job where I was working as a recruiter for an agency downtown from 8 to 5. And then, on the nights that I had help with my son, I would pick up shifts at restaurants until 10:30 or 11 at night. I don't know how I did it. You just do.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  One night, a few months after we moved in, I came home, I hit the pillow and fell asleep. A noise shocked me out of sleep at 1:00 in the morning. It sounds like the rumbling of a crowd. My son sleeps like the dead, so he didn't wake up. I blinked a little bit and I saw a blue light coming from the living room. And I went, I didn't leave the TV on. Or did I? I walked out into the living room and the TV was on full volume.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  It was on the Weather Channel, something that I don't watch. I turned off the TV and I thought, that's weird. And then I went back to bed. About three days later, I was having a night that I couldn't sleep. I was really worried about the reality of the situation that I was in. How I'm going to do daycare, how I'm going to do babysitting. All of a sudden, the TV was on. And it was blasting. It was so loud. I got up, I went out to the living room.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  It's on the Weather Channel again. Volume 50 out of 50. I turned it off and I went to bed. But this time, I was thinking, wait a minute. I turned that off. What the hell? After that second time, it just started happening all the time. Always at night, always super loud.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  And there were only two channels that it would come on. The Weather Channel and HGTV. Which I thought was really funny because I did not have a home or garden. But at the same time, it made me really angry. I was exhausted. I was barely making it through the day. And then my TV is going to come on at full volume and wake me up? What a cruel joke. I figured, okay, there's something about this technology that I don't know anything about. I looked on YouTube and I watched some videos about it.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  And then I Googled TV wiring. Should I change the plug to somewhere else? Do I need one of those big breaker plugins that protect it from a power surge? I ran all these things by my stepdad, who is a home builder. And he does electric work. He just said, there's nothing possibly wrong with your wiring that could cause that. Just unplug it. I was so tired, I hadn't even thought about it. It felt like a birthday present. I said, that's a great idea. Thanks, Dad. I'm going to do that. That night, I unplugged the TV and it did not come back on.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  The next night, I unplugged it again. Did not come back on. I had fixed it. And then the third night, I was asleep. And then the TV is blasting again.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  This time it's the Weather Channel. I got up and I stormed out to the living room. The TV was plugged back in.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  I remembered specifically unplugging the TV right before I got into bed.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  My son was only three and I wouldn't even have let him play with a plug. I knew that I wasn't hallucinating about the TV being on. I knew that I didn't watch the Weather Channel.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  If it wasn't me and it wasn't my son.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  It had to be a ghost.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  That's the only thing that I could think of.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  And I said, "What do you want from me? What do you want? Stop it." And I turned it off, unplugged it, went back to bed.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  But things ramped up.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Like I was in a relationship with this awful roommate.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Instead of the TV coming on once every three nights, it would come on every night. The volume was so loud that earplugs or anything like that would have done nothing.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  I would cuss this ghost out. "You [bleep] are you [bleep] serious right now?"

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I was so tired.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  And I didn't understand why this was happening to me.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  About a year into my living at this apartment, I had a lightbulb moment. I'd been watching a documentary and it was in French. So I was reading closed captions.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  And then my mind was like, holy [bleep]. I can do this for the ghost. If I'm reading closed captions on this documentary, maybe the ghost will read the closed captions if I leave the TV on, and then I can sleep. I said in the living room out loud to the ghost, if I put on the closed captions, will you stop turning the volume up?

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Nobody said anything back to me, but I felt like it was a compromise. I didn't know if this idea was gonna work, but I did my best to sound confident that it would. So at night, instead of turning the TV off, I muted the volume on the TV and I put the closed captions on. Even switched to the weather channel.

• 17:24Speaker 01

  When I woke up in the morning, I was like, holy [bleep]. It worked.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  From that point on, I never woke up again to the blasting volume of the TV.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  I eventually quit working three jobs, figured out that I could start my own recruiting agency at home and make money. My son was going to regular daycare. We had our bills paid and we had food in the fridge. I had money in the bank. I was sleeping. We were living in peace.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Eventually, I hired someone who was gonna work in operations, billing and invoicing and computer systems and all sorts of stuff like that. I hired a gal from Texas who I had met on LinkedIn. I flew her out to Seattle to meet her face to face. We were gonna go out to dinner and I wanted to have her drop her files in her briefcase and her laptop at my house so she didn't have to lug it with her to the restaurant.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  We walked into the building. We walked up the stairs. I opened the door. She paused in the door and turned white. And I said, are you OK? She just looked at me and she said,

• 18:58Speaker 02

  You have a ghost in your house. Her name is Christine.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  I didn't need her to tell me I had a ghost in the house because I already knew. But it was the name of the ghost that was brand new. It was almost like solving a murder mystery. Like, I got you. It's Christine. You're the one. And I said, you can tell Christine it's time to cut the [BLEEP]. That ghost has just really pissed me off. She didn't really know how to take that. She looked shocked. I don't blame her. For dinner, I took her to a really nice restaurant in Seattle on the water. And we just talked about work.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  It wasn't until later on during the dinner that I started asking, how do you see ghosts? She was pretty reticent to talk about it. But after a glass of wine, she told me, yeah, I've seen them my whole life. It wasn't something that she was proud of. It was almost like a, I'm sorry. I told her all the things that had been happening for over a year at this point. And then she told me a little bit about the ghost. She said that she was wearing a dress. And she had brown hair in a bun. She said this particular ghost was a recluse in life,

• 20:31Speaker 01

  almost to the point where she was agoraphobic. And she never left the house. And she was really shy. She said, I think she likes you because she thinks that you're also a recluse. And that you also don't leave the house. And she's comfortable with you. And I was like, well, I hope she's not because I hate her and I never want to see her again.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  I went home. My son was with my mom that night, so the house was empty. I turned the TV on, closed captioning. I just left it on something my son was watching, the Disney Channel, and I went to bed. I woke up the next morning and the TV was not on HGTV or the Weather Channel. It was on the Disney Channel, which is what I had left it on. It was the first time ever. I was like, oh, my God.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  As the days went on and it didn't come back on, it went from having a day-to-day roommate who I interacted with and had some kind of peace with to nothing. It made me feel really alone.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  I started regretting the way that I had reacted to finding out that my ghost's name was Christine. I started thinking, that was rude and I was mean. That was the only time that she had made an effort to show me who she really was. She wanted me to know her name. I had never been nice to this ghost. I was frustrated with this ghost every day. I learned her name and I snapped at her. I felt very guilty.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  I reached out to the gal who flew out from Texas and I said, hey, I think that ghost is gone. She told me.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Put a feather on a piece of paper. Write yes or no on the piece of paper and then you can ask a question. And in the morning, the feather will be either on yes or no.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  I wrote yes and no when I put the feather in the middle. I said, are you still here? Christine, are you still here? And I went to bed.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  I came out in the morning. The feather hadn't moved either way.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  She was gone.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Six years later, I turn on the weather channel from time to time and leave it on. Just while I'm doing dishes, laundry, I just leave it on.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  It's comforting to me.

• 24:13Glynn Washington?

  Ingrid and her son Rex, they don't live in that apartment anymore. But they are loyal Spook listeners. Thank you, Ingrid, for keeping the lights on. Original score for that piece was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by Ann Ford.

• 24:33Glynn Washington?

  Now, our next storyteller comes to us from India. About a year ago, he wanted to get some space to himself in Mumbai. He thought he'd find some peace and quiet down by the riverside.

• 24:47Glynn Washington?

  What he discovered instead, wow. He's still trying to figure out.

• 24:54Glynn Washington?

  Spooked.

• 25:40Speaker 04

  I went on this trip with three of my friends. Because we were bored. Just a weekend getaway.

• 25:50Speaker 04

  We started early.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  We left our city, we took a long drive towards the countryside.

• 25:58Speaker 04

  We are joking, we are laughing. We were there by eleven, twelve during the day.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  This was right in the middle of nowhere. A remote village kind of a place and I could see a very small beautiful lake out there. And over this side, we have just a small trailer where we can get our food.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Also, there were small tents to sleep on. And a small bonfire place. That's it, nothing much. I was like, that's fine, I can spend two days here, very comfortably.

• 26:40Speaker 04

  The host wasn't available that day, there was only the cook who would just help us out in whatever we need.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  We went down to the lake. Sat on the rocks.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  Put our feet in the water.

• 27:08Speaker 04

  And just sat around listening to the sound of water crashing the rocks.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Very silent. It was a peaceful place.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  Took some pictures. Came back up, had some tea. And then we lost the daylight.

• 27:31Speaker 04

  And you can hear the night. Some animal sounds, some birds' sounds. We knew that the biggest animal here could be a fox. So, nothing much to worry about.

• 27:46Speaker 04

  My friends prepared our chicken on the bonfire. Helping the cook do the barbecue. You basically hang it over the fire.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  And I wanted to take a smoke break.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  Across the lake is some mountains. And on my right hand side, there is a small river. I went to that spot by the riverside.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  It's not very far, like what 15, 20 steps. They could see me from the tent, it's that close.

• 28:28Speaker 04

  I light up a smoke. It's very dark.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  There was birds noises. I could hear the sound of water and puffing in the cigarette.

• 28:41Speaker 04

  All of a sudden, I hear a slight sound of someone's presence there.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  I turn to my right. I see a man standing on the other side of the river. Not very far. It's just a small jump and you're on the other side.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  I cannot see his actual face because it's dark.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  But I can see a silhouette of him.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  He just looked like a normal guy to me.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  He says hi.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  I say hi.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  I was like, how is this place? I'm here for the first time.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  He's like, oh.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  So, you don't know much about this place?

• 29:32Speaker 04

  I'm like, okay, enlighten me.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  This cook interrupted me, saying, sir, please come on.

• 29:42Speaker 04

  I don't know why he was calling me, but I just ignored him and I continued my conversation.

• 29:52Speaker 04

  The guy who was talking to me is like, "So, the thing is, probably you are on the wrong side."

• 30:03Speaker 04

  I'm like, "What do you mean by 'wrong side'?" And he goes, "Something really bad happened very, very, very long ago."

• 30:14Speaker 04

  "There was an angry god, who cut that land into half and passed a river through it, because that side is banished and that side is cursed."

• 30:26Speaker 04

  "The story of this place is that,

• 30:30Speaker 04

  there's one side of the river that's completely fine to go to, and the other side of the river is where you're not supposed to step into.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  It's said to be a very haunted place.

• 30:46Speaker 04

  Now that you are here, be very careful."

• 31:16Speaker 04

  The first reaction that I had was, "A random person is trying to bully me." "Oh, you're trying to scare [bleep] out of me? Okay, fine. I'm not gonna buy it." I was like, "Okay, it's nice meeting you.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  I need to go back now." And I left.

• 31:35Speaker 04

  While I walked, I'm like, "Look at this place. What do I have to worry about? Here in such a nice place."

• 31:42Speaker 04

  I walked back up to the tent and just sit back with my friends and start chilling again. Listening to music, having barbecue, talk about random things. Chicken is delicious.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  I did not mention to anyone that I met someone. It just slipped my mind. I am talking to my friend who came along with us. He is the guy who always researches on everything.

• 32:11Speaker 04

  As he tells me, this place has a story to it.

• 32:17Speaker 04

  I am like, yeah, what's the story?

• 32:21Speaker 04

  Very seriously, he tells us,

• 32:25Speaker 04

  there is a side of the river that is cursed.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  You are not supposed to go there.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  If you go towards that side, you will never come back.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  Before I could utter a word, he goes on and saying,

• 32:48Speaker 04

  if you hear anybody from that side, you are not supposed to respond. I am like, oh, what, what happens if I respond?

• 32:59Speaker 04

  Then he goes, the story goes, someone tries to call you on his side. Then the moment you jump the river bank and go towards that side, is the time that you are not coming back.

• 33:18Speaker 04

  And now a little fear does come into me.

• 33:23Speaker 04

  What is happening? Why someone telling me something like this?

• 33:29Speaker 04

  I kept on thinking in the back of my head.

• 33:33Speaker 04

  Am I on the wrong side?

• 33:36Speaker 04

  Are they on the wrong side?

• 33:46Speaker 04

  I tried to go back to my tent and take a small nap.

• 33:51Speaker 04

  One hour passed, I cannot fall asleep.

• 33:56Speaker 04

  I was like, you know what, let me just go back to the riverbank and see if I can see someone again.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  And I go back to the riverside again.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  Now, when we were kids, the thing that we were told about paranormal things or ghosts and stuff was light up any sort of fire, the ghost will never come near.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  So, I am lighting a cigarette because I know I have fire in my hand. Nothing's gonna go wrong.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  I'm standing there listening to the silence of the river. And then I again hear someone's presence.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  And I see his silhouette again. The guy is sitting there. I can see his back.

• 34:48Speaker 04

  This time, I'm a little scared and I'm also very curious. I want answers now.

• 34:56Speaker 04

  So I say, can I continue the conversation with you? Last time you were saying something about me being on the wrong side. I'm a little curious because the information I am coming with says that I am on the right side and the side that you are on is the side that is cursed.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  He's like, I am not meaning to scare you, but your side is really small. There are not good stories of people coming back from that side.

• 35:33Speaker 04

  All of a sudden, my cook comes and calls me and he's like, "Sir, what are you doing? Come up." "Can, can, please just come up." And I'm like, "I'm having a cigarette." "Why is this guy calling me up at four o'clock in the night?" Every time I come down, this guy calls me up.

• 35:54Speaker 04

  And suddenly, my friend in the tent screams at the top of her voice.

• 36:04Speaker 04

  I run back, I'm like, what happened to you?

• 36:08Speaker 04

  And she said, I thought something came and touched me.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  I tried to calm her down, she was okay.

• 36:24Speaker 04

  I get inside my tent, I take a small nap.

• 36:28Speaker 04

  Get up in the morning, seven, eight o'clock.

• 36:32Speaker 04

  I get out of my tent and I tell my friend, "Why did you scream last night?"

• 36:39Speaker 04

  And she says, "When did I scream?"

• 36:45Speaker 04

  And like last night, I was smoking on the riverbank. You screamed at the top of your voice. You said that you felt like something touched you.

• 36:58Speaker 04

  She's like, "No, I don't remember screaming."

• 37:02Speaker 04

  I'm like, "Okay, you must have forgotten."

• 37:14Speaker 04

  We set, we leave around ten, ten thirty, eleven o'clock in the morning. And in that two, three hours, we again took a small bath in the river, took some pictures, packed our stuff. I'm like, "You want to just tell the cook we are leaving?"

• 37:31Speaker 04

  He's like, "What cook are you trying to talk about?"

• 37:38Speaker 04

  I'm like, "The guy who was making the chicken barbecue for us on the bonfire."

• 37:46Speaker 04

  He's like, "Yeah, I did it." I'm like, "Okay, I saw you there, but there was a cook there."

• 37:54Speaker 04

  Both of them are looking at me in surprises. Are you trying to mess with us early in the morning? We haven't had a coffees yet.

• 38:05Speaker 04

  But there's a small shiver in me. I have goosebumps and I'm a little scared.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  I'm like, guys, please do not mess with me. We had a cook. I spoke to him every time I would go to the river bank for having a cigarette. He would call me and I would tell him, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  One of my friend told me, listen guys, let's get out of this place. Let's just get out of here. Let's start walking back to our car.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  There was silence for some time until we hit the main road highway.

• 38:53Speaker 04

  The moment we hit the highway, we started talking about it again. Now I'm like, guys, I saw the cook, I spoke to the cook, I saw you helping him do the barbecue. He's like, there was no cook there.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  And then he says, you know what else was weird? Every time you're going on the riverside, we hear you talking to someone.

• 39:22Speaker 04

  Why were you talking out loud to yourself?

• 39:26Speaker 04

  I'm like, I'm not talking out loud to myself. I was talking to someone on the other side.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  And he's like, all we know is, we would overhear you talking out loud. Why were you shouting, I'm coming, I'm coming again and again?

• 39:44Speaker 04

  I was like, that cook was calling me.

• 39:48Speaker 04

  They are like, there was no cook.

• 39:58Speaker 04

  So the story is left to a big question mark. Who was this cook?

• 40:05Speaker 04

  What side I was at? And who was the guy I spoke to on the other side?

• 40:13Speaker 04

  We never know the reality of anything.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  Could be that the guy who says you are on the wrong side, he was on the wrong side.

• 40:26Speaker 04

  Maybe the cook was my savior.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Maybe the guy was my savior.

• 40:33Speaker 04

  I can tell you for sure, something was trying to get me on the other side.

• 41:06Glynn Washington?

  Big thanks to our storyteller for coming back to tell his tale. The original score is by Nicholas Marks. It was produced by Anne Ford.

• 41:27Glynn Washington?

  Now then. 1726. Mary Toff, a woman in Surrey, England, begins experiencing contractions. Bitten over in pain, Mary starts giving birth to parts of animals, including what looks like a rabbit. The local doctor, John Howard, is called and astonished as Mary keeps delivering more and more animal parts, including whole rabbit heads, legs, intestines.

• 41:58Glynn Washington?

  Witnessing a medical miracle. A good doctor notifies other physicians, even sends specimens to King George's court. And once the king's personal physician comes to see the marvel for himself and see it, he does. Mary births more rabbits in front of his eyes. The story becomes national news. Newspapers scream, "Mary gives birth to rabbits." Unfortunately, spooksters, under examination, this little story unravels. Mary has to come clean, spend some time in jail.

• 42:40Glynn Washington?

  Every doctor that signed off on this farce has their reputations ruined forever. Horrible stuff, terrible shame, the biggest tragedy is the world. It's far crazier than rabbits. The shadowlands are so strange, so fantastic, so weird. You don't need to make things up. That's why we appreciate so much the best listeners in the world reveal what really happened. And if you have a story, I would surely love to hear about it.

• 43:19Glynn Washington?

  [email protected], because there's nothing better than a spook story from a spook listener. Spooks brought to you by the team that always turns the other cheek, except for Mark Ristich. Those are the wrong cheeks, Mark. Put on some pants. Nobody wants to see that. There's Davy Kim, Zoe Frigino, Ann Ford, Eric Yanis, Taylor Decot, Marissa Dodge, Miles Lassie, Doug Stewart, Paulina Kriki. Listen to the Z Pardu, Aditya Matu, and Lulu Jemima. This Spook theme song is by Pat McSedee Miller. My name's Glynn Washington.

• 44:05Glynn Washington?

  And there have been so many times, sitting right next to a person, a person I love, when we experience the same moment completely differently. The same words, same place, the same scene. And if you ask us both what happened, the answer's,

• 44:24Glynn Washington?

  it's like we weren't even in the same universe. And I wonder if someone so close can be so far. Is it possible that someone so far can be close? Do we sense echoes of others, echoes of ourselves? Are the spaces between us both enormous and small at the same time? And if so,

• 44:51Glynn Washington?

  what is the glue holding us all together?

• 44:55Glynn Washington?

  Maybe. Maybe we're not as far away from each other as it might seem. And if we're trying to maintain a connection in this vast darkness, perhaps the best thing you can do

• 45:11Glynn Washington?

  is to never, ever, never, ever, never, ever, never

• 45:20Glynn Washington?

  turn out the lights.